CHRISTMAS IN CAINESVILLE
I
I should try to tell it, my story, my Christmas in Cainesville.
II
My mother keeps the guns against her bedroom wall. She has done this since my brother walked into the desert and pulled the trigger. That was seven years ago.
III
Since then, certain have things built up and then eroded, money like sand, and what was left was a core of dust around which there were tussles of barbwire as brittle as branches, dead as anthills, jagged as defunct telephone poles. In the distance a ruined grey homestead dead as a corpse’s fingernails clawed the setting sun.
This was the West.
This was my home.
IV
Yeah.
I walked the rust hills around the town of Cainesville many times, often cradling my 30.06 and following game-trails. Game-trails go nowhere, you know. Anywhere and nowhere. They track back and forth upon each other like scars crisscrossing the folds of the earth.
And sometimes, out of the valley, the stag erupts.
V
I was the born hunter, trapper, fisherman. School was pointless to me. When I showed up in my long-legged overalls I was laughed at and called “farmer-boy.” I was no farmer, and I was hardly a student.
School was useless to me except for the crystal and the girls. The girls teased me and I had to go with the fat ones but I didn’t care because the crystal made sex last an instant and everything else last forever.
The crystal made me invisible when I hunted deer. The crystal defeated sleep.
VI
There was a stag whose thoughts I could sense. I knew which trails he used. I did not hunt him but I followed him. He remained ahead of me but he talked to me, sub-vocally. He was aware of me. He did not regard me as an enemy. He did not regard me as a friend.
I had to find him.
Why?
Because of the things he said to me.
VII
The deer spoke in my brother’s voice. He claimed to be my brother but I did not believe him.
I am what is left of your brother, he said.
I did not believe him.
I could not hunt to kill my brother.
VIII
So I walked into the bar.
I did not have the 30.06 with me; I had instead a smaller gun easier to hide under a down jacket on Christmas Eve.
As soon as I entered I stopped and looked around and blinked against the smoke.
Some asshole was singing karaoke, mangling the song beyond recognition.
I walked to the bar where an old couple was sitting. I noticed they ordered beers in plastic cups into which were dropped shots of Jaggermeister—“a drop of deer blood in every bottle”—there was a name for this drink I could not recall.
“What do you want?” The voice was sexy yet laconic. Rude. She leaned on the bar. Her t-shirt was pink—rotten fuchsia—and stained under the arms with sweat.
I looked at her painted eyes and smiled or grinned—approximately—and I said “beer—bud.”
She did not smile back. She grabbed a beer from the cooler and set it on the bar. I paid her. Immediately after, she lit a cigarette, blew the smoke in my direction--
Accidental?
Fuck her.
I moved away from the bar, found a table with condensation stains and errant leathery french-fries on it.
It was a lousy Christmas Eve.
The aura of everyone around me was soggy and bad. I could almost see little demon-mouths worming through the psychic meat--
fuck her
fuck this
fuck them
ALL
My gun came into my hand.
I laughed. I watched, disconnected, as I shot them—the bartender in the face, the old couple in the neck and head, the karaoke singer, I don’t know how many times I shot him but the gun could not reload by itself, and when the clip ejected it struck the toe of my right foot but I had another ready to go even as they rushed me
--the fat man
--the red girl
(I call her this because of her bad perm)
--the soldier
(was he really a soldier? I don’t know but he looked like one)
and--
I was only able to shoot one of them, the fat man, but I only knew this after his girth lay upon me and his blood ran over me.
And I thought about Santa Claus and a belly of cookies and milk and the red lights blinking in my eyes and then darkness--
IX
And I was on my way.
I should try to tell it, my story, my Christmas in Cainesville.
II
My mother keeps the guns against her bedroom wall. She has done this since my brother walked into the desert and pulled the trigger. That was seven years ago.
III
Since then, certain have things built up and then eroded, money like sand, and what was left was a core of dust around which there were tussles of barbwire as brittle as branches, dead as anthills, jagged as defunct telephone poles. In the distance a ruined grey homestead dead as a corpse’s fingernails clawed the setting sun.
This was the West.
This was my home.
IV
Yeah.
I walked the rust hills around the town of Cainesville many times, often cradling my 30.06 and following game-trails. Game-trails go nowhere, you know. Anywhere and nowhere. They track back and forth upon each other like scars crisscrossing the folds of the earth.
And sometimes, out of the valley, the stag erupts.
V
I was the born hunter, trapper, fisherman. School was pointless to me. When I showed up in my long-legged overalls I was laughed at and called “farmer-boy.” I was no farmer, and I was hardly a student.
School was useless to me except for the crystal and the girls. The girls teased me and I had to go with the fat ones but I didn’t care because the crystal made sex last an instant and everything else last forever.
The crystal made me invisible when I hunted deer. The crystal defeated sleep.
VI
There was a stag whose thoughts I could sense. I knew which trails he used. I did not hunt him but I followed him. He remained ahead of me but he talked to me, sub-vocally. He was aware of me. He did not regard me as an enemy. He did not regard me as a friend.
I had to find him.
Why?
Because of the things he said to me.
VII
The deer spoke in my brother’s voice. He claimed to be my brother but I did not believe him.
I am what is left of your brother, he said.
I did not believe him.
I could not hunt to kill my brother.
VIII
So I walked into the bar.
I did not have the 30.06 with me; I had instead a smaller gun easier to hide under a down jacket on Christmas Eve.
As soon as I entered I stopped and looked around and blinked against the smoke.
Some asshole was singing karaoke, mangling the song beyond recognition.
I walked to the bar where an old couple was sitting. I noticed they ordered beers in plastic cups into which were dropped shots of Jaggermeister—“a drop of deer blood in every bottle”—there was a name for this drink I could not recall.
“What do you want?” The voice was sexy yet laconic. Rude. She leaned on the bar. Her t-shirt was pink—rotten fuchsia—and stained under the arms with sweat.
I looked at her painted eyes and smiled or grinned—approximately—and I said “beer—bud.”
She did not smile back. She grabbed a beer from the cooler and set it on the bar. I paid her. Immediately after, she lit a cigarette, blew the smoke in my direction--
Accidental?
Fuck her.
I moved away from the bar, found a table with condensation stains and errant leathery french-fries on it.
It was a lousy Christmas Eve.
The aura of everyone around me was soggy and bad. I could almost see little demon-mouths worming through the psychic meat--
fuck her
fuck this
fuck them
ALL
My gun came into my hand.
I laughed. I watched, disconnected, as I shot them—the bartender in the face, the old couple in the neck and head, the karaoke singer, I don’t know how many times I shot him but the gun could not reload by itself, and when the clip ejected it struck the toe of my right foot but I had another ready to go even as they rushed me
--the fat man
--the red girl
(I call her this because of her bad perm)
--the soldier
(was he really a soldier? I don’t know but he looked like one)
and--
I was only able to shoot one of them, the fat man, but I only knew this after his girth lay upon me and his blood ran over me.
And I thought about Santa Claus and a belly of cookies and milk and the red lights blinking in my eyes and then darkness--
IX
And I was on my way.
